Seahawks’ Baldwin takes ‘pedestrian’ route to new heights

NEWARK, N.J. — Before the cameras went on, Doug Baldwin flipped his off.

It’s a little silver handheld device that Baldwin has been carrying all week. He normally uses it to film his question-and-answer YouTube segment, “The Fresh Files,” quite popular among Seattle fans. At Tuesday’s Super Bowl media day, he quickly scanned the crowd with the camera, capturing the grandeur and pure absurdity of it all, before tapping the tiny screen shut.
“I’m going to try and document as much as I can and just enjoy the moment,” Baldwin said. “I do (the editing) myself, so I’m probably going to put together something for my YouTube channel. But more so, this is personal for me to look back when I’m older so I can remember this moment.”

Forever motivated

It always seems personal for the 5-10, 189-pound Baldwin, undrafted out of Stanford, where he was roommates for one year with Richard Sherman. Unquestionably one of the game’s top corners, Sherman was undervalued in the fifth round. Baldwin, though, had to watch 28 wide receivers get picked without hearing his own name called. And so he developed the proverbial chip on the shoulder.

Correction.

“It’s not a chip; it’s a boulder,” Baldwin said Tuesday. “And no, it doesn’t go away, because there’s continuous doubt, whether it’s about me or my teammates or the situation we’re in.”
Because the NFL was in lockout during the 2011 draft, Baldwin was unable to sign immediately afterward. So he moved into an off-campus house with a group of ex-Stanford players, former Cardinal wide receiver Marcus Rance said, and even contemplated applying for jobs.

Once he stuck in Seattle, Baldwin began to film his YouTube segment, taking fans inside the Seahawks’ training facility and inside his own life. He started the segment on the advice of a local sports marketing agency that told him it would be a good way to “kind of put myself out there.”

You know — like what Sherman did last weekend.

Naturally, Baldwin was asked about his gaudy former roommate Tuesday. And he discussed a different type of film.

“I watch tape,” Baldwin said. “I think I have a good feeling for what a top-five cornerback looks like, and that’s just coming from a receiver — a pedestrian, average receiver. But I think Richard Sherman is definitely in the top five, without a doubt, if not the best cornerback in the NFL.”

Last week, Sherman was to Michael Crabtree as a whole slew of media was to Seattle’s receiving corps: dismissive. NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner reportedly referred to the Seahawks’ receivers as average. ESPN’s Keyshawn Johnson and Cris Carter called them “appetizers.” A Seattle Times story reported that, after the NFC Championship Game, Baldwin sought out a USA Today reporter and told him, “We appreciate you being in the presence of such average and pedestrian receivers.”

Playing numbers game

It clearly bugs him. Still does a week later.

“Everybody has their opinion,” Baldwin said. “It doesn’t make their opinion an intelligent one. You can’t just look at stats without context.”

As for those stats, you can name 28 receivers taken in the 2011 draft, but only two — A.J. Green and Torrey Smith — posted more regular-season receiving yards than Baldwin’s 778.

“Doug Baldwin had a heck of a game (in the NFC Championship Game), and he’s a heck of a receiver and has the stats to prove it,” Sherman said, surrounded by half the world’s football writers. “I think that these cameras could be anywhere.”

But the big cameras all sought out Sherman, which was probably OK by Baldwin because he doesn’t seem too fond of them anyway.